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Wednesday, September 23, 2015

A New Adventure

When Matt and I bought our house last summer, the plan was a very slow flip. Our main goal was to tear out the kitchen and do a major overhaul. That overhaul is finally underway...And hopefully it will be finished before Megan comes to visit for BDR! (No promises, though; a friend is doing most of the work pro-bono so we're at the mercy of his schedule.)

Here is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in:

Our house was built in the 70s, and I don't think the kitchen has been updated since then.

I absolutely hated the cabinets. They're thin, unadorned wood painted beige; the paint on the handles is chipping and the bottoms of the drawers were all in danger of falling out. Also, weirdly, the cabinets opened in the same direction instead of meeting in the middle and opening in opposite directions. For some reason, that drove me nuts.

Our additional room is full of cabinets.

They're beautiful! We got a few fun, snazzy features I'll share once they're installed, and they're soft-close, even though we didn't spring for that upgrade! I guess it was free! We haven't decided on hardware yet.

The biggest logistical problem was the position of the dishwasher and oven. The doors would catch on each other and that corner was really cramped. I'm having the sink and dishwasher flipflopped to fix that issue.

I also hated how closed off the kitchen was. When I was cooking, I felt secluded from the rest of the house, and it was impossible to get any light in there.

This weekend, we cleaned out the cabinets to prepare for the first stage of the update: demo!

We put everything on the dining room table and covered it with a tablecloth to protect it from dust.

Then, Matt and the crew got to work.

Here it is now:

The view in from the living room. That PVC pipe has already been rerouted back into the wall, so the window is fully open.

The view from the kitchen!

I was adamant about losing that wall. That meant moving some plumbing around. The cabinets will be installed within the next couple weeks (they need to finish drywall and electrical stuff first), so right now our kitchen is basically useless.

My "kitchen" right now.

We put a deposit on some dark gray granite for the counter tops, so the kitchen will look bright and modern once it's finished! I can't wait! My dream-kitchen would have a wired island and a state-of-the-art dishwasher, but this is a good start.

Have you ever done major renovations on a house?What does your dream-kitchen look like?

Since Adam and I have always been renters we've never had the privilege of re-doing anything. We're also totally uncreative when it comes to decorating and that sort of thing. Some of our walls are still blank in the apartment even though it's been almost 10 months since we moved in!

lol I am laughing so hard because I thought to myself, "This is so GROWN UP"... you know, buying cabinets and getting your kitchen redone, and right when I thought that, I scrolled down to the picture of your new kitchen. :) But what are ya gonna do??? Bathtub is a perfect fix for now. I love the opening of the wall and can't wait to see the new cabinets paired with the granite!

Exciting! Our kitchen is similarly cramped and outdated. Like you, we're hoping to open it up to the somewhat useless formal dining room. Unfortunately the wall between them contains the main air ducts for the second story, so it will be a pretty complicated renovation. One day though...

I hope you aren't without a kitchen for too long. You're smart to use the bathtub, but I'm sure it's pretty annoying for you guys.

Haha! I love your kitchen bathtub! I hope things move along quickly and that you have your dream kitchen up and running soon!

We are renters and have yet to own a home, so we've never done anything like this and have just had to live with being stuck with whatever we get, lol. We want to own a home someday, and this is the part of it I kinda dread. While working on projects is fun and I'm pretty low-maintenance, I really hate having to live through renovations of necessities like the kitchen and bathroom. I don't know why, it just annoys me. I'd love if we could find something move-in ready in our price range but, dare to dream, huh? LOL.